The Olive Reader

At KGB Bar’s Sunday Night Fiction Reading Series (85 East 4th Street, 7pm) Paula McClain, author of Ticket to Ride, and Matthew Eck, author of The Farther Shore, will read.

Tony O’Neill author of Down and Out on Murder Mile, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in Fall 2008, sent me an e-mail with the following subject heading, “i wrote a story because i was bored and now i am sending it to you.” And that’s all you need to know.

“The Seventh OD”

Hazel had been beautiful once, but that had been a long time ago. Now her beauty only existed in hazy snapshots that filled her mother’s photo albums, and occasionally in dreams that would leave feeling sick and breathless when the dawn came. She was watching TV with Mike, her boyfriend, an LA musician who didn’t play music anymore and a coke dealer they had picked up in the Frolic Room called Smooth. The apartment was shabby and small: an open kitchen which was no more than a strip of linoleum next to a hot plate and overfilled garbage can, and a bathroom situated so that everyone in the main room had to listen to the strains and splashes of every bowel movement that went on in there.

Hazel said, “I want to watch my stories” and turned on the TV. “Intervention” was on A&E, a show in which unwitting addicts agreed to be filmed by a documentary crew only to be surprised by an intervention at the end of the show. They watched as a sobbing speed freak relented, and agreed to be shipped off to a detox facility in Florida.

“Shit, they got meth in Florida,” Mike laughed, “Good meth, and better weather than in fucking Michigan. I’d take that ticket too.”

Smooth was a good twenty years older than either Mike or Hazel. The constant presence of the television irritated him, as he swirled the cocaine in a bottle cap, and started to suck the solution through a cigarette filer and into a syringe. Tufts of grey hair peeked out from under the brim of his hat. His face was furrowed in concentration, a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Eager to change the subject, Smooth nodded over to the guitar stacked away in the corner and said “So you play, Mike?”

“Oh yeah. I play. I had a band but, you know, uh problems with some of the other guys and… well, it wasn’t working out. I’m writing songs right now. Gonna get something else together. D’you play?”

Smooth grinned, “Shit, I used to play bass for Sly, back in the day. Crazy times. What kinda stuff you play? Rock and roll, huh?”
Mike smiled, “Yeah.”

The credits started rolling. Hazel flicked off the TV and said, “Mike’s group were real good. They would have been big, if they hadn’t split up. Too many volatile personalities, right baby?”

“Right.”

They started to prepare their own shots as Smooth slid the needle into his arm. When he was done, he licked the blood from the puncture wound and said “do you mind?” walking over to the guitar. Mike grunted his consent, needle between his teeth, tying off with his belt. As they fixed, Smooth played some clumsy blues chords on the de-tuned acoustic, and muttered to himself about being out of practice. His fingers felt fat and slow, and the cocaine was making his hands shake. The moment he started playing, the coke took his focus elsewhere and he wanted to walk around the apartment, he wanted to talk, he wanted to go stand on his head in the corner. He noticed a picture of a child in a cheap frame, sitting on top of the mute television. He walked over and leaned closer. The child was blonde, with dark eyes. She was laughing at the camera, maybe 3 years old.

Smooth said, “Who’s the cutie?”

Hazel had finished up. She slid the needle out and said, “Thats Devon. My daughter.”

“She with your mom?”

“Uh-huh. The courts took her away after I got arrested the last time.”

“Shit, I hear you girl. I got two of my own, all grown up now.”

“Do you see them?”

Smooth shook his head, his face impassive. “Their mother turned those kids against me a long time ago. Last I heard my son was going to college but that must have been, shit, that must have been 5 years ago so I guess he done graduated already.”

The coke took Hazel. She found herself talking about her mother and about Devon. About the last time she had visited them. How Devon had ran to her screaming “mommy! mommy!” and she had held on to her for dear life. How her mother had stood over them both the whole time, with that dour, disapproving look on her face. About the argument that had erupted between them, the screaming the plate throwing. Devon curled up under the kitchen table, struggling for breath in between her terrified howls and sobs, and the blow – delivered by Hazel across her mothers smug, righteous face – which severed their relationship forever.

The words tumbled from her mouth in a coke numbed babble, and when she was done Hazel stretched back and lit a cigarette. There was silence in the room for a moment, before the talk started up again. It was Mike who broke the silence by saying, “This is good shit, man. I’m glad we bumped into you tonight.”

“Shit, I’m shocked I never seen you guys before. Y’all are friends of Sheena, right?”

“Right. Friends of friends, kinda.”

“Shit, small world.”

They carried on shooting the coke with the grim determination that shooting coke entails. Soon they were beyond words, their jaws locked tight, their hearts pounding in their chests, just the grim compulsion to finish now, to feed all of the drugs in the apartment into their arms. Mike locked himself in the bathroom, and took a sputtering coke shit, splashing cold water in his face and staring at his reflection in the mirror. His asshole felt raw and tender. His eyes seemed to vibrate in their sockets, and his vision was blurring in and out. Already he could feel it starting, the gnawing pit of self loathing that tried to swallow him from the inside out. He knew that from this point on, the night would be about trying to keep it at bay long enough to allow the valium to kick in. Otherwise he would be tempted to use a knife on himself again. His arms were a patchwork of self abuse: needle marks, calcified veins, razor slashes and bloodletting. How long, he wondered, before he just did it and put himself out of his misery?

“MIKE! YO MIKE COME OUT HERE!”
Mike sighed, turned away from himself again. He opened the door. Smooth was crouching over Hazel. Hazel was convulsing on the floor again. She was twitching and shaking, and grabbing at her crotch with twisted, bunched up hands.

“I didn’t do nuthing man, I just looked over ‘cos she was gurgling an shit an making all of this crazy noise and BAM she just falls off the chair and starts shakin’ on the floor. Is she fuckin epileptic or some shit?”

“Fuck me,” Mike said, grabbing the phone, “She’s fuckin ODing again. Its the coke. This is like the 7th fucking time this has happened. Lemmie call the ambulance”

Smooth stood up, as if to stop Mike from making the call. “You crazy?”

“It’s cool, man. Her old man is a big shot over at Cedar Sinai. She’s got her insurance through him. It’s cool, I told you this has happened before.”

“But the COPS man!”

“The cops can’t do shit. You wanna wait here until we get back? They might show up here, but just don’t answer the door.”

“Sure man. Shit.” he looked at Hazel, on the floor, vibrating and saying “ug-ug-ug-ug” and he said, “Thats some freaky looking shit, man.”

“Scared the shit out of me the first time. Yes, hello? Yes I need an ambulance Uh-huh. My girlfriend is having a seizure. Uh-huh. yeah, the address…”

They tidied away the drugs, and ignored the looks that the ambulance guys shot them when Mike let them in a few moments later. By the time they showed up, the seizure had mostly subsided, and Hazel was on her side in the recovery position. They checked her vitals, and Mike told them what her name was.

“Hazel! Hazel! Can you hear me Hazel?”

Her eyes remained dull and unfocussed. There was a lot of commotion as they put her on the gurney and started to wheel her out of the apartment. They left Smooth there, and Mike went out holding Hazels’ small, cold hand as they wheeled her into the back of the ambulance.

Mike sat up front with the driver, as they sped through the pre dawn streets, on their way to the emergency room. The driver was asking a lot of questions about what drugs Hazel had been using. Mike said “I think she has been doing coke,” but refused to say any more than that. They rode the rest of the way in silence, as the siren wailed and Hazel started to regain consciousness in the back.

In the sodium glow of the emergency room, Mike paced and waited for word. The waiting room had a smattering of desperate people lounging around, nursing wounds or waiting for news about their friends or loved ones. They looked tired, beaten down by circumstance. Still jumpy from the cocaine, Mike walked outside and stood smoking a cigarette in the warm 4am murk. The cops showed after an hour, and asked the same questions they always asked. They wanted ID but Mike had none. They stalked into the doctors room, and questioned Hazel. They seemed harassed and disinterested, and left without too much fuss. At 6 o’clock Mike was allowed to come to Hazel’s bed, which was separated from the other beds by a shield of flimsy plastic curtains. In the next bed a man was calling for his mother, and from somewhere else a woman’s sobs echoed off the uncaring institutional walls. Hazel was sitting up in bed. She looked up at Mike with sorrowful eyes and said “Can we get the fuck out of here now?”

They called a cab and rode in silence back to the apartment. The sun was casting all kinds of odd light against the smog which hung over the city. The smog looked beautiful, Mike thought, like something you might see hanging in an art gallery. Hazel said, “I think I’m hungry. Is there any food at home?”

“I think we have hot dogs.”

“Will you make me a hot dog?”

“Sure, babe.”

She looked a little sadder than usual this morning. She stared out of the window, and Mike watched the light bouncing from the angles of her face. Mike said, “What’s up?”

“I’m just tired. I dunno, I just think… what’s the point, you know? I mean, what’s the point? Look at that bitch on Intervention last night. I didn’t see her ODing, being rushed to the ER. She didn’t even shoot up. Why was she on TV? I feel like, why am I putting my body through all of this when there’s nobody to see it happen?”

Mike was silent for a while.

“I mean, shit, my mom ,I know that she hates me, but couldn’t she have at least thought of calling that show? One fucking phone call? I cant call myself. I’m not meant to know. I’d play along! I’d act surprised when they did the intervention. I’d pretend that they were just doing some film about the day in the life of a coke head. I feel like Im being wasted! All of this STUFF is happening and there NOBODY SEEING IT.”

“But, Im seeing it babe…”

“I don’t mean you! I mean PEOPLE. People on the other side, you know?” she tapped the glass for emphasis, “People on the other side of the screen. People at home.”

Hazel stared out of the window, sadly.

“I just feel like i could be someone, and instead of being someone I’m just squandering it all. What is the point of going through all of this, of feeling this, of putting my body through all of this if there’s nobody watching me? If there’s nobody looking at me, nobody making me real?”

“But you are real. We are real people, Hazel.”

“No! No we’re not. If nobody SEE’S it, how can it be REAL?”

They pulled up at the apartment. Mike paid the driver and slid the key into the lock. They stepped in, and the first thing they noticed was that Smooth was gone. A lot of things were gone. The place seemed both more chaotic, and emptier than they remembered it. “Oh shit!” Mike spat.
They looked around the apartment in silence. The drugs were gone. Mike’s guitar was gone. The kitchen drawers hung open, emptied of their meagre collection of silverware. In the bedroom Mike looked at Hazel’s underwear drawer, hanging open laviciously, emptied of most of her panties.
“Thats motherfucking bastard robbed us. I’m gonna kick his fucking ass when I catch up with him.”

“He left the TV,” Hazel said, turning it on and sinking to her knees in front of it, “At least he left the TV.”

Mike stalked around the apartment, kicking things, and cursing to himself. Hazel was calm again, watching the television with a curious, blank expression, the cathode light making her pallor seem less pronounced.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Fuck.”

Mike walked over to the fridge. he wrenched it open and stared into it. The fridge was empty. Smooth had emptied the fridge. All that was inside now was a tub of sour cream and a stick of butter.

“He stole the fucking hot dogs,” Mike said, matter of fact.

Hazel didn’t hear him. She was watching her stories.

The Hirshhorn Modern Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. recently held a contest in which the only rule was that artists could use only one sheet of paper. (Or so I’m told, I can’t find any mention of this on the gallery’s website—but a handful of bloggers can’t be wrong, can they?) In any event, the entries are amazing. Do yourself a solid and click here.

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Wall Street Journal interviewed President of Harper and William Morrow, Michael Morrison, regarding the partnership between HarperCollins and Sharp Independent. We’re sort of proud. Go, Michael!

The latest Boldtype has a great interview with Lydia Millet. Her most recent book is How the Dead Dream, which has a monstrously disturbing cover (or is that an elephant?). If you want to know “what animals can teach us”, you may want to read Millet.

All has been announced and live-blogged at Critical Mass, the NBCC’s blog. Joyce Carol Oates nominated in two categories. Vikram Chandra joins her in the fiction category for his novel Sacred Games.

This is fun. Top 10 Drunk American Writers.

For serious, this will be the final installment of New Year’s Resolutions (but as evidenced by his videos which we posted some time ago, Mr. Heim is pretty popular on this blog). I thank all the authors, editors, publicists, and others who contributed to this exercise in sharing. Now these from Scott Heim, author of In Awe, Mysterious Skin, and forthcoming in March, We Disappear:

What was the best book of the year?
A couple of these may have actually been published late in 2006, but I’d have to say: Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell; The View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro; Some Phantom/No Time Flat, by Stephen Beachy; and Charity Girl, by Michael Lowenthal. And just because I happen to share my life with one of these writers doesn’t mean I still don’t think it was one of the year’s best.

What was the best movie?
No Country for Old Men; The Lives of Others; The Diving Bell & the Butterfly. (And for very different reasons, I also really liked The Host and Knocked Up.)

What was the best song/album?
Okay, this is where I could list about 20 or 30. But here were some of my favorite albums, in no particular order: Radiohead, “In Rainbows”; The National, “Boxer”; Burial, “Untrue”; “Apparat, “Walls”; Band of Horses, “Cease to Begin”; Blonde Redhead, “23”; Ulrich Schnauss, “Goodbye”; The Mary Onettes, “The Mary Onettes”; Interpol, “Our Love to Admire”; Air Formation, “Daylight Storms”; The Twilight Sad, “Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters”; The Field, “From Here We Go Sublime”; Crescent, “Little Waves”; and Bracken, “We Know About the Need”

Who was the person of the year?
Doris Lessing? Al Gore? Thom Yorke? Jonathan Papelbon?

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To make improvements on my house. To read many more books than I did in 2007. To finally learn some Spanish. To enjoy the publication of my book without freaking out too much. To start a new novel, or to go back to writing the occasional short story now and then.

Any predictions for 2008?
The Red Sox will win the World Series again.

These from Ann Herendeen, author of Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander, forthcoming April 2008:

What was the best book of the year?
As a writer whose first book is set in 1812, and whose second book is set in—1812—I don’t keep up with current books as I should. And even if I did, I couldn’t claim to be qualified to pronounce on which is the “best.” So I will say that of the books published in 2007, the ones I would most like to read (may I have a fiction and a nonfiction choice, please?) are:
Fiction: The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt (Bloomsbury)
Nonfiction: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War by Graham Robb (Norton)

What was the best movie?
This is even harder. None of this year’s movies really did it for me. After plowing through the lists, the movie that I hadn’t even heard of but that sounds compelling is There Will be Blood, described in IMDB as “A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.” Besides Day-Lewis, who really made me sit up and take notice with My Beautiful Laundrette, it also stars Ciaran Hinds, who I thought made a wonderful (and not your usual romantic lead) Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion.

What was the best song/album?
Can’t do “best,” and I don’t really do albums anymore. The song I liked: Mary J. Blige “Work That” (love the video, too.)

Favorite Blog?
This is the easy one: MarkSimpson.com

He calls himself (or used to) “the skinhead Oscar Wilde,” but he’s much better than that.

The post that turned me on to him is from Feb. 15 2006 in which Simpson begs to differ with news reports that female bisexuality is common whereas male bisexuality is rare-to-nonexistent.

Who was the person of the year?
Sam Harris. Why? Here are quotes from a talk he gave at the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington D.C. on September 28th, 2007, in which he discussed why “atheism” is perhaps not necessary as an identity:

“All we need are words like ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ and ‘common sense’ and ‘bullshit’ to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.

It seems to me that intellectual honesty is now, and will always be, deeper and more durable, and more easily spread, than ‘atheism.’”

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To complete the transition from “librarian who writes in her spare time” to “writer.”

Any predictions for 2008?
I’m not good at this. I confidently predicted, back in 1977 or 78 (or whenever the “midi-skirt” had its brief moment of fame), that the miniskirt was gone for good. All I can say for sure is that the earth will get warmer.

These from Simon Van Booy, author of The Secret Lives of People in Love (Turtle Point Press, 2007) and, forthcoming in 2009 from Harper Perennial, Love Begins in Winter and Waiting for God:

What was the best book of the year?
I’m really not a good person to ask what was good about 2007, as I’m a few years late with everything. But here goes:

I read The Great Gatsby for the first time after it was sent to me by a friend. I loved it. I wonder if Fitzgerald liked Emily Bronte? Now I’m reading Stig Dagerman’s A Burnt Child.

What was the best movie?
The Darjeeling Limited. I just love the line: “What’s wrong with you?”

What was the best song/album?
Les Ondes Silencieuses by Colleen. If you don’t know who she is, then you’re missing a rare talent. This woman is magic.

Who was the person of the year?
Marcel Marceau—the French mime who died in September. During World War II, as a member of the French Resistance, he saved numerous Jewish children from the concentration camps, then after the war, dedicated his life to spreading ‘the art of silence.’ Amazing how someone who said nothing managed to say everything.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Drink more water. Get up earlier. Learn how to use a sextant. Finish my next book. Talk to strangers.

Any predictions for 2008?
I think millions of people are going to ‘fall’ in love when they least expect it to happen.

These from Harper Perennial’s publicity director, Alberto Rojas:

What was the best book of the year?
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz — just perfect

What was the best movie?
Tie: Hairspray (typical, I know. But did you really think I was going to say anything else?!) and La Vie en Rose (Marion Cotillard is magnificent)

What was the best song/album?
It Won’t Be Soon Before Long — Maroon 5

Favorite Blogs
ABC News The Note
NYT The Lede
Drudge Report

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Run 3x per week

Today, Friday, January 4, 2008 will be the last day on which we share New Year’s resolutions. We figured that as time does its thing, you know, ineluctably marching forward and so forth, that we’re nearing the second phrase of NYRs: actually fulfilling them.

Here are answers from Robert Westfield, Lambda-award winning author of Suspension:

What was the best book of the year?
I think I’m a year behind, but my favorite two books of the year [released in paperback in 2007 (and let’s be honest: paperback is where it’s at)] were Fun Home, the smart, hilarious, and poignant graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, and Ellis Avery’s The Teahouse Fire, the how-did-she-do-that? novel about tea ceremony in nineteenth-century Japan.

What was the best movie?
Again, I think it might be considered last year (it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in February), but The Lives of Others was by far my favorite movie.

What was the best song/album?
I’m going with Andrea Burns’s debut, A Deeper Shade of Red. She’s one of my favorite actresses and there’s a fabulous song written for her about fan worship on myspace: “BTW, Write Back.” Brilliant.

Favorite Blog?
Towleroad.

Who was the person of the year?
I’m going with my grandmother (ELLAMAE) who just turned 100 and read all ninety-two of her birthday cards without eyeglasses. She didn’t remember who many of the well-wishers were, but she read the cards without glasses! Person of the Year!

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Same as last year: More tea, less coffee. Not going to happen…

Any predictions for 2008?
The British will actually go so far as to start wiping their arses with U.S. currency.

Such headlines! Yet they convey the truth!

Homer Noble Farm where Robert Frost summered from 1939 to 1963 was vandalized during an underage-drinking party. I tell you this because I was there. Jimmy Nickles, the running back for Ripton Prep, started grinding against the back of a wicker chair doing his impression of a camel from the Mongolian Gobi desert. After a series of cacophonous tail-slaps, the chair collapsed beneath his weight. We then threw it into the fire, along with everything else. Katie Kissinger made out with Tommy from Down County. As usual, I ran home crying. The AP has the full story.

*All names and situations, except for the news story, are the product of my infantile imagination.

***

The 82-year-old Sardinian poet, Peppino Marotto, was killed in what is suspected as the culmination of a 50-year-old vendetta. His involvement in a murder attempt dating back half a century is believed to have been the source of conflict. The Guardian has the full report.

Another set of answers from one of our own: this time around Jennifer Pooley, editor of many fine titles here at HarperCollins, provides her insights into the year past and the year ahead:

Best Book:
The global event that was the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows reminded me again of being a first grader and falling head over heels in love with the other series that no child should miss, The Little House on the Prairie series, which for me, was the formative reading experience that charted the course for where I find myself today. Additionally, the letters and essays of E.B. White, Katherine White’s Onwards and Upwards in the Garden, and Roger Angell’s Let Me Finish were the writings that I kept coming back to during the year.

Best Movie:
Once. I couldn’t stop talking about it, I couldn’t stop listening to the soundtrack. I adore it’s simple premise of how unexpected friendship and encounters can help us transform our lives. And just last weekend, Atonement absolutely captivated me, Joe Wright’s time-stands-still tracking shot of Dunkirk has inspired me to read all of the books Ian McEwan read in researching the novel beginning with Walter Lord’s The Miracle of Dunkirk.

Best Album:
Thirteen Cities by Richmond Fontaine, I listened to it everyday.

Favorite Blog:
“The Lo Zone” the site of Lolita Files, whose novel sex.lies.murder.fame. was published by Amistad.

Person of the Year:
Photojournalists.

New Years Resolutions:
To try to stay true to last year’s resolution which I quite liked, “leap more, look less.”

Prediction for 2008:
One million new members to the Facebook group “Pink Hats are Worse Than Yankee Fans” and “The Curse of A-Rod” lives on!

From Catherine Hanrahan, author of Lost Girls and Love Hotels:

What was the best book of the year?
I’m a sucker for anything Japanese, so I’d have to say After Dark by Haruki Murakami. Set, like my novel, in love hotels.

What was the best movie?
I loved Control, the Ian Curtis biopic. It was filmed in black and white making Manchester in the 70s look like an Eastern block country. Great music. Sad story.

What was the best song/album?
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire (and not just because I’m Canadian)

Favorite Blog?
I’m all blogged out to be honest.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
I’m going to finish my second novel. And remove my eye make-up before retiring to bed each night. I’m sick of looking at Alice Cooper first thing in the morn.